Baker Mayfield caused a bit of a stir the other week when he essentially called out Tom Brady for playing mind games with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Mayfield famously replaced Brady in 2023, something that was trolled at the time but ended up being a move that has paid off in more ways than one. Tampa Bay instantly rebooted its culture and has hit a winning stride ever since Baker took over, and the Bucs rewarded him with a $100 million contract this past offseason.
The culture part of that is key, because there was a stark difference in the locker room once Baker came aboard. It's not that Brady didn't install a winning culture, rather it seems there's a more laid back and relatable feel now that Mayfield is in charge. It's something that Tristan Wirfs noted last season and something that Baker brought up in rather controversial fashion last week.
“You hear some of the stories about if he didn’t like a certain play call and he didn’t like it throughout the week and they still call it in the game, there might have been a throwaway on purpose or throwing it at the running back or receiver’s feet,” Mayfield said of Brady. “There were a lot of mind games going on.”
Those comments simmered under the surface until Brady pulled out his flamethrower and fired back.
Tom Brady had a fiery response to Baker Mayfield saying he made it 'stressful' to play for Bucs
Brady was back in Tampa for Sunday's game, working the booth for FOX with Kevin Burkhardt. It took a little bit for the topic of Baker's comments to come up, but Brady wasted no time in picking him apart the way Mayfield was doing to the Eagles defense down on the field.
During the FOX broadcast, Brady responded to the comments and went scorched earth.
“I thought stressful was not having Super Bowl rings,'' Brady said. "This wasn’t daycare. If I was going to have fun, I was going to Disneyland with my kids. There’s a way to approach this game and it’s with the right mindset to push teammates."
To be fair, the two met on the field before the game and shared a nice little moment together so there doesn't seem to be any bad blood between them. If anything, their comments are classic gamesmanship, or at the very least a gentlemen's arguement as the passive aggressiveness of each quote is real but there's no real venom behind the comments.
Baker has baked up his talk, though. Not only has he successfully guided the Bucs into the post-Brady era but he was cooking the Eagles while Brady watched in the booth. Mayfield carved up Philly's defense in the first half, scoring touchdowns on each of Tampa Bay's trips to the redzone and both making Brady and probably seethe in the booth.
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